Coaching at the collegiate level goes beyond just game strategy. This series explores the administrative side of running a successful program, with practical insights from Coach Mac, a former women’s volleyball coach.
Have a topic you’d like us to explore? We welcome and encourage you to reach out with suggestions for future sessions: [email protected]
Unofficial Visits
Campus visits are a big part of the recruiting journey for the university, coaches and prospective student-athletes (PSAs), or recruits. In Part 1 of this series, we discussed official visits. For some universities or programs, budgets and accessibility make it difficult to offer multiple official visits, which is why unofficial visits are offered as an alternative. Unofficial visits allow recruits to visit campus, but all costs are covered by the recruit/recruit’s family. This means that recruits are responsible for their own travel, whether that includes flights, transportation, a hotel stay (if needed), and most other expenses. However, there are a couple of things that a program is allowed to pay for or provide during an unofficial visit.
Teams are allowed to provide complimentary admissions to a home contest for the recruit and their accompanying family members. The program is also allowed to provide meals for the recruit and accompanying family members. While a program can’t provide a hotel room or pay to house the recruit, it may provide a dorm room with a current student-athlete, as long as the recruit pays the institutional lodging rate.
A question you might have is whether you can hold a tryout for a recruit while they are on an unofficial visit. The answer is yes.
Just like a tryout held during an official visit, several pieces of paperwork are required for compliance purposes. The requirements are as follows:
- A physical completed within the last year and a sickle cell test result.
- Tryouts must take place after June 15 going into the recruit’s junior year.
- Each recruit can only participate in one tryout per college, not one tryout per campus visit.
- All paperwork should be collected and turned into the college’s compliance director.
Coaches are always encouraged to discuss any further specific requirements that they want prior to tryouts on either official or unofficial visits, including when all paperwork must be turned in.
Visits are a key aspect in recruiting for coaches, programs and potential student-athletes. They give both coaches and recruits the opportunity to get to know one another and begin building a connection. Before that can happen, however, coaches must ensure all requirements are in place so there are no issues when the recruit arrives on campus. This includes any required paperwork from both the NCAA and the college compliance director. Coaches are encouraged to make sure to clearly communicate with their compliance director in order to ensure that everything gets in on time so that they and the recruit can enjoy the visit day.
As mentioned in Part 1, SprySign is incredibly helpful for keeping these things organized. Similar to the Official Visit workflow, coaches also have the opportunity to submit required information through an Unofficial Visit workflow. This makes the process for both coaches and administrators much more seamless while providing the recruit with a valuable, end-to-end experience.
All information was fact checked using the 2025-2026 NCAA Division II Manual.


